1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to writing systems, more particularly to drive systems for high speed line writing apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In high speed line writing systems such as ink writing systems, a writing head is normally linearly guided for line-by-line printing on a record carrier which may be paper. Movement of the writing head is caused by a motor device. The motor device normally consists of an electric motor coupled to a pulley system. In such systems the belt or cable is guided over the pulleys with the cable being connected to the writing carriage. In such an arrangement, the movement direction of the writing carriage is determined by the direction of rotation of the driving motor. Thus, both the writing carriage and the motor must be brought to a stop for each change of the carriage movement direction which occurs at the end of a line. In addition to stopping both the motor and writing carriage, of course, the motor and the writing carriage must thereafter be accelerated in the opposite direction.
When used in connection with very high speed writing systems, such as ink jet writing systems having a number of piezoelectrically driven ink jets arranged at a writing face of a writing head carried by the carriage, the writing speed depends to a great extent upon the time lost during reversal of direction of the writing head at the beginning and end of each line. In presently known writing systems of this type, writing carriage reversal is noisy, time consuming and energy expensive. It would be an advance in the art of machine writing to reduce these disadvantageous factors.